


four-chambered heart

by LizMikaelson, saltziepark



Category: Legacies (TV 2018)
Genre: F/F, and new years in milan, and the bed sharing trope, and we amped up the angst just a touch, asking for a friend, because hope has a home but a home is also a person ya know, because we care about her not being homeless, because we just did that, christmas in new orleans, clueless landon, gay idiots, hopes living in the mikaelson mansion, is there a magic hands stuck together trope?, jealous Josie, kissing booths and nosebleeds, magic and mayhem and curses, set after the football match, the friend is me, they're in love and in denial, you get a trope and you get a trope and you get a trope!
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-07-07
Updated: 2021-02-12
Packaged: 2021-03-05 02:14:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 20,895
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25126819
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LizMikaelson/pseuds/LizMikaelson, https://archiveofourown.org/users/saltziepark/pseuds/saltziepark
Summary: An encounter in the middle of the woods leads to an unlikely alliance as Hope and Josie try to remove Malivore's curse while navigating how they really feel about each other.
Relationships: Hope Mikaelson/Josie Saltzman
Comments: 115
Kudos: 465





	1. one

_“When you trust, you are tender and delicate, but when you doubt, you are dangerous and destructive.”_

_\- anaïs nin_

She’s had a damn long day. 

Damn long night, too. 

Mystic Falls is quiet now, in the middle of the night, the faint buzz of chatter from inside of the still-open grill disturbing the silence along with the cicadas. The end-of-summer air is stale, oppressive, hanging around Hope like a halo of sadness. A reminder of a life once lived. 

Ethan’s not going to be okay, not really, running around with a broken arm for weeks, his scholarship in danger, but Hope is even more worried about Josie. 

The dangerous glint in her eyes, the way she’d whispered that spell without a second thought, and the way she’d looked at Hope, so much anger straining out of her. 

She walks home through the woods. 

Home is different now, anyway, and the trees she ran between when her life was still different feel more comforting than the empty mansion she’s heading towards. 

The moon, half-full, illuminates her way, and she breathes in the warm air, her gaze drifting back towards the dim lights of the school in the distance. She’s not paying attention and maybe that’s why she notices too late. She’s distracted, she’s not thinking clearly and she can’t seem to get the look that had flashed over Josie’s face out of her head. 

As she steps into the clearing, she sees Josie. 

And Josie sees her. 

Josie looks up, and her eyes are tired, the warm brown that Hope knew from memory, chocolate and coffee and kind look pale, defeated, and glossy.

“Why are you here?” Josie asks. 

Something coils inside Hope, a response to the anger on Josie’s face. Maybe it’s because she jumped into Malivore for people who’ve forgotten about her. Maybe it’s because she’s hurt, lonely, and tired. Maybe it’s because she needs Josie to remember her, more than anyone else. She feels it burn low in her stomach, simmering. Josie has no monopoly on anger, not when Hope gave up everything for them. For her. 

Because Josie has always been there, quiet, maybe, but sharing stable, soft smiles and gentle snark, and Hope misses, misses, misses her. Misses her even more as she stands feet from her, her senses on high alert. She can hear Josie’s heartbeat accelerate, can hear the snapping of twigs as Josie adjusts her footing. Hope doesn’t move, doesn’t react as the wind whips through Josie’s hair and she smells Josie’s perfume through the trees. A shudder passes through her, unbidden. 

“Why did you break Ethan’s arm?” she bites out, walking into the clearing, closer to Josie. 

Brown eyes flash at her - like wood before it's lit aflame - as Josie turns defensive. “You can’t prove that.”

Hope shrugs, the rage building up inside of her because she’s tired but she’s also so damn angry at them all, at herself. She’s been back for weeks and for the first time, she actually feels alive again. She aches to reach out to Josie - to hit her or hug her, she isn’t sure. 

“I don’t need to prove anything. We both know it’s true.” Josie glares at her, and Hope delivers another blow. “He might lose his scholarship.” 

Josie implodes, the air around them crackling with magic. “I didn’t know what the spell would do,” she confesses. 

Her words linger in the air, and Hope can breathe a little easier. At least she feels sorry for it. 

“Did the headmaster give you the spell?” she fires back. 

“Yes,” Josie says, and she steps closer, too, now. “Are you a witch?”

“Yes,” Hope replies, “most of the time.” It’s as close to the truth as she can offer, and Josie seems to accept it. “Why are you listening to him?”

Josie shrugs, her gaze defiant. 

“What’s going on with you and my boyfriend?” Josie’s way, way too close now, and all Hope can see is her eyes, the mix of emotions in them, and she can smell Josie even more now, a distinct reminder of home, cinnamon and chamomile and fuck, she’s been without human contact for too long, that’s all. 

She bites down on her lower lip, focusing on the question Josie asked her. “Nothing,” she replies. “He reminds me of someone I used to know, that’s all.” 

The hesitation in Josie’s expression is obvious, and all Hope has ever wanted is for the people she loves to be safe and happy, even if that meant her unhappiness. “You have nothing to worry about from me, Jo,” she whispers, “I promise.”

The nickname slips off her tongue far too easily, and for a moment, as a wave of relief washes over Josie, Hope prays that she hasn’t noticed. Because they may not know each other anymore, but the comfort from Hope’s words does _something_ to Josie. 

But then Josie’s reaching out, her hand on Hope’s arm, stopping her from walking away again, and her gaze is seeking and searing, and Hope feels frozen in place under her intensity as she watches Josie’s mind, far too clever, work at putting the pieces together. She’s always, always, always been so damn perceptive. 

“He reminds you of someone or you used to know him?”

“I should go,” Hope attempts, desperate. 

“Did you jump?” Josie asks her. “In the summer, we wondered - are you the person who jumped into Malivore?” 

“You have nothing to worry about from me, with Landon,” Hope repeats, but she knows that it’s too late. Knows the fierceness with which Josie fights for people. 

“Am I someone you used to know too?” Josie breathes out, and she’s only inches away. 

“Yes,” Hope whispers, her hands clutched at her sides, knuckles white from holding back from Josie. 

Josie’s fingers slide down her arm, loosely wrapping around her wrist, and Hope should walk away, but she doesn’t want to. She should, but she can’t, and so she stays there, standing, transfixed. 

“Who were we to each other?” 

“We weren’t like this,” Hope chuckles darkly. “We were friends.” The confession sets her free, because she’s missed Josie, missed her more than she missed Landon and his crooked smile, Lizzie and her blistering barbs. 

She should’ve expected the next question. “And you and Landon?” 

Hope sighs, shaking her head, taking a careful step backward. “I won’t be a problem in your relationship with Landon,” she repeats.

“Friends tell each other the truth,” Josie insists. 

Hope breathes, once, twice, before she looks up to meet Josie’s eyes. “We were in love.”

Josie sinks to the ground, the pain obvious in her face as her knees crumble. “You should’ve told us. You should’ve told me. What’s your name?”

“Josie, he’s happy with you.” Hope kneels down, places a placating hand on Josie’s arm. “You’re both happy together. My name’s not important.”

“He deserves to know. That you’re an option.“ Josie laughs, sarcastic and dry. “ Who wouldn’t choose you?”

“Plenty of people, I assure you,” Hope replies, her tongue wetting her lips as she gazes at Josie. 

“That’s hard to imagine,” Josie says, and her gaze dips down to Hope's lips, lingers, and god, Hope has been a little bit gone for Josie Saltzman for years. But she’s never acted on it, and now’s definitely not the time to start. 

She’s just being emotional, she reminds herself, because she’s been lonely, because Landon had replaced her without a second thought, because she’s missed her friends. Because she’s missed Josie most of all. 

But something in the way Josie is looking at her, her expression open and daring, reminds Hope of whispered words and magic passing between their hands and Hope wonders if Josie will taste like the vanilla lipgloss she would always have in her bags, if her hands are soft and sure on Hope’s waist, if her cautious heart will race under Hope’s touch. She wonders and she wonders and she wonders. 

And she can’t - she gets to her feet, holding out her hand to Josie. “I should go,” she says, and Josie’s hand in her own is warm, soft, gentle, and Hope never wants to let go. “Please don’t tell anyone.”

“Wait,” Josie calls, right as Hope has turned, her hand catching at Hope’s wrist and falling into her palm as she tugs Hope back to face her. 

Hope is biting her lip because she can’t trust what she does next, can barely stand to be this close to Josie and feel everything that they have shared flash through her mind like a movie on repeat. 

“We weren’t just friends, were we?” 

Josie’s hand is intertwined with hers and Hope might never want to let go. The question definitely has her stuttering, caught between the truth, an easy lie and everything else that’s between them. “We were,” Hope says, “friends,” and Josie looks like she’s about to step away and Hope, selfishly, doesn’t want her to go anywhere. 

“We could have been more, maybe,” she admits. “Once.”

She can’t bring herself to tell Josie about the fire or about the week she spent in absolute agony over Josie when the brunette could barely bring herself to meet Hope’s eyes. 

Josie laughs and it’s sarcastic and cynical and her eyes sparkle as she gazes down at their joined hands before looking back up to Hope. 

“Of course our timing didn’t work out. I think that’s par for the course with me, sadly,” she says quietly. 

Hope wants to reach out, touch Josie’s face, close the distance between them, to wrap Josie up in her arms. She can’t. No matter how much she might want to, kissing her friend who doesn’t remember her, who doesn’t want her back, that’s not the right thing to do. 

Josie shivers, pulling Hope out of her reverie, and it’s only then that she notices that a storm is on the way, typical for a summer night in Virginia. She lets go of Josie’s hand, so, so reluctantly, and slips out of her jacket, holding it out. “Go home, Jo,” she pleads, “it’s the middle of the night. And it looks like rain.”

The standoff between them lasts for several seconds, before Josie finally slips the jacket on, wrapping it tightly around her. “We’re not finished with this conversation,” she says, before she disappears between the trees. 

Hope goes home to the manor, and she sleeps horribly, and Josie’s in her dreams, maple eyes following her every move. 

The last time she thought about Josie in any romantic way, before she shut that box and sealed it tightly, she’d barely been more than a child, and she’d really just wanted to hold Josie Saltzman’s hand and maybe walk her to class. 

Now, her thoughts are no longer so innocent, and when she wakes up, gasping for breath, the flashes of her dream are still vivid in her mind. 

Josie in her lap, Hope’s hand sliding up her thighs. Josie with her hands tangled in Hope’s hair, pulling her closer. Josie, breathless, with her cheeks flushed as Hope drops kisses down her neck. 

It takes her a moment to grasp that she’s been woken up by knocking on the front door, and she throws on one of Aunt Rebekah’s robes over her shirt and hurries downstairs, attempting to catch her breath. 

She runs a hand through her hair and inhales sharply, trying to collect herself, before pulling the door open. 

“Josie,” she blurts out, takes in the girl standing in front of her. She looks prim, proper, her hair pulled back, Hope’s leather jacket held out towards her. The sun has barely risen and Hope squints against the early morning light. 

“Hello, Hope.”

“What are you doing here? How do you know my name?” she manages. Which fine, isn’t polite, but she hasn’t had a coffee and the girl she was maybe, kind of, having a sex dream about is outside her door. 

Josie doesn’t seem offended, in any case. “I’m returning your jacket. And I want your help to remove the Malivore spell.”

Hope reaches for the jacket. “There is no way to remove the Malivore spell. And you didn’t answer my question.”

Josie looks at her, and suddenly the situation feels all too real. “You showed up here, all mysterious and gorgeous, told me we could have been something once, but that you were in love with my boyfriend, and now you expect me to just go back to my life?”

Hope spins around her heel, motioning Josie inside. She’s not at all happy with this, but she needs coffee, because this is going to be a long conversation. She pours them both a mug, adding milk to Josie’s before handing it to her. 

Josie sips on it and surprise flickers over her face, then realization. Hope holds her own mug in her hands and sighs. She’s way too tired for this. 

“I won’t let this go,” Josie declares, and Hope tightens her hold on the cup. She knows, she knows all too well that Josie, once she’s made up her mind, won’t be easily dissuaded. 

“If I agree, and that’s a big if, you have to stop using spells the headmaster gives you.”

“Why?” Josie asks, jutting her lower out in such a petulant move that Hope nearly smiles. Because it’s so like Josie to be righteously indignant about using magic. 

“Those are my terms, Saltzman,” Hope says sternly, her jaw clenched as Josie looks at her for a beat, and then another. She’s sizing her up, trying to figure her out, but it's something more than that. Josie has always looked at her like she could see her, really see her. Like her legacy and her name meant nothing to her, like she was just Hope. Not the world’s biggest cosmic mistake, not the savior or the daughter of the Great Evil. Josie looked at her like she was the world. 

“How do you know my name?” Hope tries again. 

Josie jumps at the feeling of a warm, furry body wrapping around her legs. Hope’s newly adopted cat (adopted was a loose term - the cat had chosen Hope, simple as that) slinks around the kitchen before hopping up on the kitchen island, leveling Josie with a glare. 

“See, even Persephone wants to know,” Hope says simply. 

“A little on the nose, there,” Josie remarks with an eyebrow raise. 

“I’m a sucker for dramatics. Blame the osmosis of your sister’s presence in my life,” Hope replies simply, and it’s almost easy to fall into old habits with Josie, the banter they used to toss at each other as natural as breathing. 

“I repeat, how do you know my name?” Hope asks, setting the mug down as the black cat stalks over to Hope, rubbing her face on Hope’s shoulder. 

“I asked around town about you, Hope Marshall. Also, Mystic Falls really needs a better firewall because it was too easy to get into their system and get student records.” Hope breathes a sigh of relief at the use of her mom’s last name, but it would only be a matter of time before the word Mikaelson made its way out into the open. Hope takes the opportunity to tuck the silver ‘M’ of her necklace underneath the collar of her tank top. 

“You should talk to your dad about your internet habits, Root." Josie looks up at her then. Persephone, having grown tired of Hope and interested in the newcomer, was laying in front of Josie with a paw dangling in the air. 

“You know my dad? Wait of course you do, because of the game,” Josie reasons and Hope hates holding all of their history back from Josie, but it is for her own good. It’s easier like this. It will keep Josie safe. “No, you knew him from before, didn’t you?” 

“He’s kind of a hard guy to avoid as the Headmaster.” 

“Ex-headmaster,” Josie reminds her, her hand moving up and down Persephone’s stomach. 

“I think I might be partially to blame for that,” Hope admits, the realization like a bomb exploding in the pit of her stomach. Shit, she’d have to apologize to him for that, she tells herself. Her tear-filled confession to him last week is still fresh in her mind and she bites back the guilt. 

“Can we lay down some ground rules?” Hope asks quietly, looking at Josie, her sleep-tousled hair framing her face. 

“Uh, yeah,” Josie replies, mouth dry as she looks at Hope. 

“Okay, for starters, I’m not going to tell you anything more about the past. If your spell works, and it might not, then you’ll remember everything soon enough. No need to open up any old wounds just because you can’t keep your curiosity at bay.” 

Josie opens her mouth, but Hope holds up a hand to silence her. “That means Landon, the school, your dad. It’s a black box and it’s gonna stay that way.” 

“Don’t you miss u-the school?” Josie asks, the question tumbling out of her mouth with the full force of a freight train before she pivoted as quickly as she could. 

“I’m not answering that. Do we have a deal, Josie Saltzman?” Hope holds out her hand across the granite countertop. 

Josie looks at her again, wills herself not to chew at her lip before she slowly, ever so slowly, reaches out to shake Hope’s hand. The feeling, just like the night previous, is electric and the jolt goes straight to Hope's heart, leaving her breathless. 

“We have a deal.” 

“Good, now if you don’t mind, I have to get ready for school-” Hope begins before Josie interjects “- we should exchange numbers! You know - just, because, that way we can coordinate,” she finishes lamely. 

Hope raises an eyebrow, but holds out her hand for Josie to drop her phone into her palm. 

“I trust your number hasn’t changed since before this summer?” she asks, nearly typing ‘Hope Mikaelson’ as her contact name before erasing and restarting with the correct fake name. 

“Hasn’t changed,” Josie smiles as Hope hands the device back to her. She looks around the kitchen once before her eyes return to Hope. 

“Please leave, Josie,” Hope warns her gently, the walls she has built around herself already threatening to crumble to longer that Josie stands there, watching her, putting the pieces together in the cracked mosaic. Josie had torn those walls down once before and Hope had never forgiven herself for it, but now, now she needs the armor like she needs air in her lungs and blood in her veins. 

Josie smiles sadly, glancing at Hope before turning on her heels and leaving the kitchen, the front door slamming behind her. 

“Don’t start with me,” Hope says to Persephone, who was looking at her with judgment in her green eyes. “I’m dangerous. She’s dangerous. It’s a powder keg waiting to happen.” 

Hope lets herself think that it would be worth it, so worth it, just for a second before she groans to herself, running upstairs to jump in the shower before her first period. 


	2. two

She’s almost late to school, almost but not quite (thank goodness for supernatural speed), and the day passes in a boring litany of Math, English and smalltalk between classes. Her desire to be invisible and keep a low profile seems to have been thwarted by the football match with Salvatore and everyone now knows her name. Great. 

Neither Maya nor Ethan are in school that day, so god knows what will be coming on that front. She really hopes he gets to keep his scholarship. 

By the time she makes it across town and back home, she’s about done with the day. Who knew Calculus was _actually_ invented by the Devil? No one had seemed to mention that back at Salvatore. 

The fact that every single locking spell she placed across the entrance is gone gives her pause, her breath leaving her chest in small spurts as she approaches the house. The hairs on the back of her neck stand up and she sniffs the air cautiously. 

Her wards were good, great even. Freya had taught her when she was younger and she had followed her aunt’s instructions to the letter. The thought of Freya and Keelin and baby Nik makes Hope nearly tear up, but she pushes all thoughts of them to the back of her mind, into a box labeled “later.”

Right now, she has bigger problems. 

Carefully, she steps inside, primed for a fight, her hands spread out wide. This is either an attack or…. “Josie,” she greets, stepping into the front room with an eyebrow raised.

Josie's sitting on the couch, Persephone - the traitor- sprawled across her lap, looking quite at home.

Well, shit, time for new wards, Aunt Freya. 

“To what do I owe the breaking and entering?” Hope asks, tilting her head to the side to look at the pair. “Fickle creature,” she chides, shaking her head. 

“Me or the cat?” Josie responds, scratching under Persephone’s throat, causing the cat to purr. 

“The cat,” Hope sighs, putting her bag down. There are many words she could use to describe Josie, fickle certainly doesn’t fit her.

She ignores the words that _do_ come to mind when she thinks about the brunette. 

“I brought food,” Josie offers, pointing to a stack of pizza boxes on the kitchen counter. It’s enough to feed a small army. 

“Are you sure you got enough?” Hope teases. 

Pink hue spreads across Josie’s cheeks. “I wasn’t sure what you’d like,” she defends. 

“You know what I -” but Hope stops herself, swallowing the words because Josie knew what she liked before, but now, Hope’s nothing more than a stranger to her. “Capricciosa,” she settles on. “I like Capricciosa.”

Josie smiles, obviously satisfied with her answer. “Second from the top.”

She walks over to the counter, places her own slice of pizza on one plate and a slice of veggie lovers on another one, before walking back and handing it to Josie, sitting opposite her in a worn armchair. 

“So, I’ve been doing some research,” Josie begins, as soon as she’s taken the first bite. Hope tries not to watch the way her lips wrap around the pizza, a dangling thread of mozzarella disappearing into her mouth. 

“When did you have time to do research?” Hope questions. 

“Perks of living at the school for my entire life. I’m kind of ahead in most of my classes,” Josie explains and Hope can only agree because it was so like Josie to excel academically. “I also have a free period in the mornings, so after you so kindly kicked me out -”

“I had to shower and go play nice with the Muggles,” Hope explains quickly, dropping the pizza slice and wiping her hands on the cloth napkin that Josie seemed to have found in one of the kitchen drawers. She should be unsettled by Josie making herself so at home in the house, but for some reason, she isn’t. 

“You should come back to school,” Josie suggests, folding her own napkin in her lap, if only to give herself something to do with her hands as she speaks with Hope, “you don’t have to tell anyone that they know you.” She leans forward in her seat. “It’s bound to be better than Mystic Falls High.”

Hope shakes her head, firmly. “No, Josie.” It wasn’t up for discussion. 

Josie looks like she kicked her puppy, frown lines etched across her face and Hope can’t bring herself to go over this again, to explain why this is better. Why it would hurt too much for Hope to walk the halls of her home as a stranger.

“Tell me about your research,” she deflects instead. 

“So, you’re still in our minds, I think, but the curse has kind of built a wall, maybe, a barrier, between our conscious thoughts and the memory of you.” 

“It’s like a dam then,” Hope reasons, following Josie’s logic. “We need to unblock the block.” 

“Exactly,” Josie agrees, “and these kinds of blocks can normally be siphoned away. But this isn’t exactly a normal memory charm, so I would have no idea what kind of block to look for and what to remove.”

“So we can’t do it?” Hope offers. “I can go back to my life and you can go back to yours?”

“You would give up so easily?” Josie asks, her voice tinged with sadness and Hope can’t, won’t look her in the eyes because it's easier this way, she thinks. Easier to keep the bandage on rather than rip it off and let the world remember her. Let Josie remember her. 

“We just need to find out more about the kind of curse Malivore casts when someone jumps into it,” Josie says to Hope’s silence, pointing to her backpack on the floor, which is obviously stuffed full with books. “I borrowed some research materials.”

“Borrowed?” Hope questions and Josie shrugs, refusing to offer any more information as she bites into her pizza. 

“What Dorian doesn’t know won’t hurt him.”

“Who are you and what have you done with Josie Saltzman?” Hope asks, but she wishes she could take it back. The familiarity burns in her throat and she gets up from the chair, going into the kitchen to fill two glasses with water, setting one down on a coaster in front of Josie. 

Josie looks like she wants to reply, but she doesn’t, instead reaching for her bag and pulling out a stack of books. 

Hope knows what they need to solve this mystery, or - well, she knows where they should start their journey because all roads lead back to New Orleans for her and her family, it seems. But she can’t go down that road. Not yet, at least. 

It’s better, Hope rationalizes, to keep Josie busy by letting her tear through the massive library at Salvatore before they resort to other methods. Like misguided road trips to family members who don’t even remember that she had been born. 

Because Hope still isn’t sure that this could work. Hasn’t ever heard of any magical creature, cosmic mistake or not, restoring memories stolen. And even though Josie believes, and she does, Hope can see it in her face, she isn’t sure she does. 

“So, where do we begin?” Hope asks to break the silence. 

“I’m so glad you asked that,” Josie replies, pulling out yet another stack of books that was far too big for the small backpack she had perched against her legs and handing them to Hope. “We can start with these.”

* * *

“You know what this study session needs?” Josie asks, after two hours of silence. 

Hope had spent most of the time looking at Josie, her head bent over the grand table in the dining room, having declared the living room not suitable for their needs. She had been scribbling notes diligently, page after page of swirling writing that Hope had spent years looking at. She knew the exact way that Josie looped her y’s and her g’s. She knew that she always put a cross on her z’s and sometimes forgot to dot her i’s. She knew that when Josie was concentrating, really concentrating, she would stick her tongue out just so, the pink tip peeking out from blush-colored lips. 

“What?” Hope asks, caught staring at Josie who had been twirling a lock of her dark brown hair in her fingers as she read. Hope’s voice was hoarse - obviously from not using it for the past few hours. Definitely not from the way she knew she had been less than subtle with her glances.

“Ice cream.” 

“Do you have any in that giant bag of yours, Hermione?” Hope raises an eyebrow, a smile dancing on her lips. 

“No, but it looks like a gorgeous night for a walk,” Josie explains, a smile on her face to match Hope’s and Hope’s powerless to say anything other than yes when Josie’s looking at her like that.

* * *

“Where does everyone think you are?” Hope questions, as they begin walking towards town, the sun setting in the distance. 

Josie shrugs. “Taking a mental health day to deal with the stress of the match. Lizzie’s covering for me.”

“And that excuse works? Simple as that?” Hope asks, kicking a stone with her heeled boot. 

“The joys of being the ex-headmaster’s daughter, I guess,” Josie laughs cynically, eyes downcast. “I learned over the years with Lizzie that people will give you space - you just have to ask for it.” Josie glances over at Hope, who was watching Josie from the corner of her eyes. 

The Josie she knew, the Josie from a few months ago never asked for anything, never took anything. She was content to give and give and give. Hope had always known that she could be different. The quiet strength simmering underneath the surface has always been apparent to Hope. But yet, a lot seems to have changed during the last few months. 

Hope stuffs her hands into the pockets of her jacket as they walk. Josie ducks her head under one of the many willows lining the street. It was quiet, almost too quiet for a place that just last year had a new monster each week, stalking the students at Salvatore and the people of Mystic Falls. It nearly feels like a dream, being here with Josie, on an ice cream date - whoa, this is definitely not a date.

This is a mutual trip to an ice cream shop with two people who barely know each other. That’s all. 

That’s all it can be. 

So why does it feel like the fireflies were dancing just for them? Why does it feel like the air is ten degrees warmer swirling around them? Why does her heart, which normally beat a steady pace, feel like a hummingbird dancing around her chest? 

She is lonely, she reasons. Lonely and attention and touch-starved and there was nothing with her and Josie. And besides, she's with Landon now and all thoughts about him are permanently filed in the 'don’t think' about folder in the messy filing cabinet that was her brain. 

“Tell me something about yourself,” Josie requests as they reach town. 

“We said no questions about the past,” Hope reminds her, and wonders how much longer she can manage to say no to Josie. 

“I’m not asking about the past. You can keep your secrets, Hope. For now.”

“I’ve seen every season of Chopped - you know, the cooking show? There are like 44 seasons, or 45 maybe, I could be wrong. But it’s good background noise and the cat seems to love Geoffery Zakarian for some reason.” 

Hope isn’t sure if Josie will be satisfied with this non-answer. It isn’t a lie, not really, but it isn’t the whole truth. 

Because how can she tell Josie that she stayed up late some nights watching the show because sleeping means drifting back into Malivore once more?

She can’t tell Josie that. Besides, knowing Josie, she’d probably camp out on a complete stranger’s doorstep to make sure Hope was okay. 

It’s easier than it should be, talking to Josie. It’s always been too easy, and Hope knows that Josie has a talent for crashing through her carefully erected walls, despite her attempts to fortify them with distance and deals. 

“So you can cook anything now? All I have to do is just show up with a picnic basket full of random ingredients and we can have a meal?” 

“You can try,” Hope teases, “but I make no promise of edible results.” Hope ignores the clenching of her heart at the thought of cooking for Josie, navigating her way around Josie in a kitchen, Josie sitting on the counter, her gaze upon Hope as she moved around - no, no, not going there, Hope. 

“Noted,” Josie says, with a spark in her eyes that could only spell trouble. Hope had seen that look too many times before. A glint in her eyes that spoke of mischief wrapped and disguised behind chocolate brown eyes and a wide smile. 

“So...your turn.” 

“You already know most things about me, I think,” Josie points out. 

Hope shrugs. “Tell me something, and I’ll tell you if I knew.” She holds the door open for Josie at the ice cream shop, rolling her eyes at the name because Game of Cones was a bit much. Josie seems to buy into the blatant copyright infringement though, getting Dothraki Cookie Dough ice cream while Hope opts for pistachio. 

Josie fights her over paying for their desserts, but she explains it away quickly when she hands a sleek black card over to the pimple-faced guy behind the register. 

“Don’t worry - I have a lot of money saved up. Summer jobs or whatever.” The whatever being a trust fund from her dead parents, but Josie doesn’t need to know that. Her dead parents and their legacies, her legacy, are definitely not topics Hope wants to get into tonight. Or ever. 

They sit on a bench in the town square, eating their ice creams while the sun sets, the sky an ombré of reds, yellows, oranges and purples. 

When Josie tells her about herself, she definitely knows most of the things Josie tells her - about playing the ukulele, about Lizzie, about the school. She snorts with laughter when Josie says _I like firespells._

“Talk about an understatement,” she mutters into her ice cream as Josie pouts at her, kicking Hope’s foot with her sneaker.

“I don’t think I much like the part where you know so much more about me than I do about you.”

So Hope tells Josie about painting - how sometimes it’s better than sketching because she can let the paintbrush trail across the canvas almost of its own volition. How she can spend hours sitting at the easel, the splotches on the palette slowly mixing together the longer that she paints, creating new hues and colors.. How the days can move quickly from sunrise to sunset while she’s lost in a creative rabbit hole, inspiration dragging her mind away from the world. 

Josie listens, attentive, as always, and the shadows of the past months disappear into the back of Hope’s mind. 

Time feels like it’s flying by and it’s quickly approaching midnight by the time Josie disappeared into the night, a wave of her fingers as she walked away from the manor. She had lingered as long as she could and Hope was content to let her, not willing to part with her for her own selfish reasons. And if it keeps her from seeing Landon, that was only just a simple byproduct of their time spent together. 

Because one thing she had realized, during the game, in the dark clearing, in her bed the morning after, sitting with Josie in the town square just now - she isn’t in love with Landon anymore.

She hasn’t been for a while, if she’s being honest with herself.

She isn’t sure when that had changed, when her world had shifted away from Landon toward - well, when the world had shifted. Had it been jumping into Malivore? Had it been when she was spat out of Malivore? She isn’t sure but one thing that she knows is that the flash of recognition in Josie’s eyes, sparks of which she has seen, are dangerous. 

For her. For Josie. For Landon. 

One by one, she replaces the protection charms Josie had so easily siphoned away. Josie and Landon are happy together, that much is still true. And Hope’s still the key to defeating Malivore. The world may have shifted on its axis, but that part still makes sense. 

And no matter how easily Josie has found her way back into Hope’s life, chances that they could actually remove the curse were slim to none. It’s better for everyone, Josie especially, if Hope pulls herself together, lets the past be the past and forgets about her messy feelings. Which she does, while she takes a hot shower, the mist swirling around her body as she lets the water hit her back, the crescent mark tingling under the heat.

But the feelings come back in the form of another dream and another sleepless night and Hope knows when she wakes up in the morning, rubbing sleep from her eyes as Persephone watches her from her favorite armchair, that she is absolutely, well and truly fucked. 


	3. three

Maya drops onto her desk in the library. “Marshall. You’re just the girl I was looking for.”

Hope looks up from her notes, cautious because the smile that is splashed across Maya’s face is positively devious. Hope hadn’t seen the girl for a week and now she decides to drop in, cheeks flushed and eyes bright. Not that Hope blamed her. Things with Ethan were the talk of the school and Hope had been busy. 

Her days had been spent surviving English Literature and her nights had been monopolized with a Josie Saltzman determined to wheedle her way into every aspect of Hope’s life. Not that she was complaining. It was just..hard. Different. 

Having Josie back in her life, even if it was only really just a half-life, a life wrapped in a lie, had been like a breath of fresh air after choking on ashes. 

Like her life up until then — her life as Hope Marshall — was a drought and the sight of Josie each night, sprawled across her couch with her legs over the arms or hunched over her dining room table was like seeing an oasis far off in the distance, the beauty of the shimmering aura. 

She reminded Josie of what she lost, of what she saved and it burned deep in her chest, clenching around her heart like barbed wire. Because they were all safe and happy and it was because of her but now Josie was here, constantly around, reminding Hope of _everything_. 

The moment that her eyes caught Josie’s shining brown orbs in the clearing so many days ago, her stomach flipped and she choked on the words in her mouth, burning them up and exhaling them like smoke because memories rushed back, unwanted and painful but so so real and Hope knew that Josie didn’t have those memories anymore. Josie didn’t know her anymore. She didn’t know her past, her family, her failings at living up to her legacy, her ability to kill and destroy everyone she loved. 

It was a blank slate, a chance to start over new, even if it was all a lie. 

So what was worse, Hope wonders? A Josie who didn’t know Hope, or a Josie who knew Hope and could be killed because she was a danger to Josie and to herself and to everyone around her once they realized who she was. What she was. A liability. A mistake. 

“Hi, Maya.”

“Are you single?”

Yes. No. Maybe. Technically. “Yes,” she settles on. 

“Excellent,” Maya replies with a smile that distinctly reminds Hope of Lizzie and has her fearing for her life, a little.

“So, Ethan was supposed to volunteer for the kissing booth for Founder’s Day this weekend, but we can’t exactly put a guy in a cast on display, even if he would get the sympathy vote and might bring in a lot of cash,” Maya trails off with a look on her face that could only spell trouble, before looking back at Hope. “Anyway, you’re cute and you got a great smile and I’m sure you can charm your way into anyone’s wallet for a good cause. Are you game?”

She thinks about saying no, but she doesn’t really have any reason to. It’s not like she ever had plans.

“It’s for a good cause,” Maya adds, and Hope shrugs. At the very least, it might be a distraction. Besides, she’s single. Very much single. 

“Why not?” she replies and Maya breaks into a delighted smile. 

“Honestly, I thought this would be harder,” Maya grins. 

“Why?” 

“Because you and long-legs from the football match seemed to be eye-fucking each other every play. Don’t get me wrong, it was hot. But anyone would have guessed something was going on there.” 

Hope’s heart catches in her throat. Had she been that obvious? Had Josie? And how had they been eye-fucking each other during the game when all she had been doing was watching Josie to make sure — shit. 

“Oh, uh,” Hope starts, her voice stuttering as she rubs a hand at the back of her neck, blinking slowly. “No, that definitely wasn’t what was going on there.” 

“Are you sure? Because from where I stood — whew,” Maya makes a hand motion like she was fanning herself and Hope just laughs, but it comes out bitter and forced. 

“No, no, she’s uh — she’s kind of dating my ex. The guy with the curls?” 

“You mean the lanky dude that was terrible at football and looked like he hadn’t seen the sun in years? Girl, I know you know you can do better. Long-legs too, she could totally do better.” 

“Josie,” Hope sighs, “her name is Josie.” Maya’s nickname is not at all helpful in her endeavor to stop thinking about Josie’s legs. 

“So there’s nothing going on with you and Josie?” Maya raises an eyebrow and Hope just swallows. 

“No, she’s — it’s — it’s complicated,” she forces out, heat spreading to her limbs with the lies. 

“Okay,” Maya says slowly, “no better way to get over someone than to get under someone else. And by ‘under,’ I mean, put your lips to a good cause and kiss any boy or girl that comes your way.” 

Maya disappears then, after giving Hope all of the details about the event. She knew all about Founder’s Day, of course, it was a Mystic Falls tradition for some stupid historical reason that was probably deeply rooted in some kind of racism or colonialism. But Maya was excited about it and Hope let her excitement infect her too, if only for long enough to plaster a fake smile on her face. 

Josie shows up in her living room more nights than not, always armed with thicker and thicker books. She wants to ask how Landon feels about his girlfriend being absent so much. 

She’s smart enough to avoid the question. 

Their research hasn’t yielded anything yet, and Hope doesn’t feel hopeful about it. Not that - she’s fine, either way. 

“I’m busy tomorrow,” Josie says Friday night, and from the way she averts her eyes, suddenly fascinated by the marble tiles in the foyer, Hope knows that she’s going to be with Landon. 

She forces a smile onto her face. “Yeah, me too.” It’s not even a lie, thanks to Maya. 

“Oh, cool,” Josie says, and Hope can almost believe the cheerful tone. Almost, but not quite. She knows Josie too well. 

Hope says her goodbyes to Josie, leaning against the doorway of the manor as she watches the witch disappear into the night once again, taking Hope’s heart with her.

* * *

The next day dawns with a bright sun shining over Mystic Falls. Hope decides that this was a profoundly stupid idea on her way into town, because kissing a dozen or more people isn’t going to make anything better. It won’t make her stupid, idiotic crush on Josie go away. 

She can’t really back out now, and besides, she’s allowed to do something stupid. Just once. Rebekah would be on board. _You never know what might happen, darling._ On the other hand, Rebekah doesn’t even know that she exists anymore, so there’s that.

The kissing booth is, well, exactly what you would imagine a kissing booth to be at a small-town festival. It was bright red, with giant lips decorating the outside of the booth from top to bottom, advertising kisses for five dollars (Hope was sure her kisses were worth more than that, thank you very much) to support Mystic Falls athletics. It was a bit hastily constructed, with a folding chair behind the wood separating the kisser from the kissee, but what could you expect from high schoolers? At least it was standing, which was better than could be said for the drama club’s booth. 

Hope swaps spaces with a guy from the flag football team. Bobby or Brent or something like that, standing with her arms crossed and an eyebrow raised, tapping the sole of her combat boot as she stands, disregarding the chair completely. 

“Come on, Marshall,” Maya says from behind her, shaking her head as she clutches a clipboard to her chest. “You’ll catch more kisses with honey than with vinegar, isn’t that how the saying goes?” 

“Why didn’t you volunteer for this then? I’m here, aren’t I?” Hope says, her jaw clenched. She was being obstinate, she knew she was. But anger was always easy for her, a simple armor to wear cloaked in sarcasm and cynicism. 

Maya seemed to see through that though, looking at her for a few beats silently while Hope smolders. Eventually, Hope groans, breaking under Maya’s gaze. It was gonna be a damn long day if she was in a mood the entire time. 

“Fine, you’re right. I’m sorry.” 

“Someone woke up on the wrong side of the bed this morning,” Maya comments under her breath. “Can I get you anything? Water? Lip gloss? Breath mints?” 

“Are you trying to tell me my breath smells?” Hope breathes into her hand and then sniffs it. It smells normal, she thinks. 

“I think your breath smells just fine,” a voice from behind her says. Hope turns back to the front of the booth quickly, her heart hammering in overdrive because - 

“Josie, hi,” Hope breathes out and Maya steps closer to Hope, her eyes wide and a huge smile on her face. 

“The famous Josie,” Maya says and Hope sidesteps in front of Maya before she can say anything more. 

“Maya was just leaving,” Hope explains, shooting Maya a glare that promised bodily harm if she were to bring up anything about their conversation the day before. 

Josie looks gorgeous, dressed in a yellow tank top and white shorts with frayed hems. Hope chants a chorus of _don’t look down, don’t look down, don’t look down_ at what she knows is miles and miles of leg that is no doubt being shown off. She fails miserably.

“So you’re Josie. Where’s the Dashboard Confessional wannabe you call your boyfriend?” 

“Watch it, Maya,” Hope warns, her voice low. 

The comment doesn’t seem to have bothered Josie, who takes a folded twenty-dollar bill out of the pocket of her shorts, holding it up to Hope before dropping it in the jar. 

“I should, uh, go check on the dunk tank,” Maya says, backing away slowly as she pointed over her shoulder vaguely in the direction of the swim team’s dunk tank for new speedos. A muscular boy was sitting on the small seat above the water, laughing as he waited to get dunked.

Maya turns on her heels to walk away but glances back every few steps. Subtle. 

“So, are you just going to stand there?” Josie asks and Hope suddenly remembers where they are and what they’re doing. “I think I paid for a kiss. Well, four, actually.” Josie’s cheeks are dusted with pink as she glances away from Hope and at the sign and then back to Hope, but it could just be the warm fall day. That’s totally it. 

“Indeed,” Hope says, her heart beating in her ears and her hands clammy as she clenches the wood of the booth. She feels it cracking under her hands and lets go, unsure of where she should put them or what she should do with them. She knows where she would like to put them, that’s for damn sure. She just wasn’t sure if Josie would agree. 

“I think you’re supposed to kiss me, Hope.”

Josie leans in close to her, her eyes sparkling in the sunshine, caramel and honey and topaz galaxies swirling in her irises and Hope's lost in her gaze, aching to reach out and grab Josie’s hips to pull her closer, closer, closer.

She needs Josie so much closer. 

Their lips are a hair's breadth apart and Hope can feel Josie’s breath warm on her lips. Can smell her perfume and the hint of mint in her lip gloss. Can feel the seconds slow as the world stops spinning. 

Josie's smiling into the kiss, angling her head, and Hope can’t do anything else but lean in, their noses touching and Josie’s gravity sucking her in. She's lost in the eye of the hurricane and it’s so calm and quiet even as her heart beats a thunderstorm in her chest. 

Her hand snakes out to pull Josie closer by the back of the neck, her fingers sliding across Josie’s cheek and through the hairs at her nape. She closes her eyes and breaths in again and —

“Hey, Jo— whoa,” Hope hears behind Josie and the world speeds up again and she and Josie spring apart. Hope takes a step back for good measure and Landon’s eyes are wide, a smile that was on his lips sliding off as he looks at the pair.

“Landon, hey!” Josie says and it's too high pitched, too fake and Hope bites her lip and feels blood in her mouth and she focuses on that, on the dull pain and not on the way that her heart is tearing out of her chest. 

“You remember Hope — for charity — I mean, she’s not a charity case, but — the football game — she was the quarterback — I mean, it’s a good cause, you know — town spirit, ” Josie rambles out, looking from Landon to Hope and back, a hand at her chest. 

Landon nods, as if the explanation makes perfect sense to him, and pulls a five-dollar bill out of his pocket. “Should I donate too?”

“No,” Josie says quickly, breathless, before she blushes. “We promised we’d meet Lizzie. You know we can’t keep her waiting.”

Landon accepts the absolutely horrible excuse with a smile and a nod. “We better hurry then. It was nice seeing you, Hope.”

She mutters something non-committal and watches them disappear. Watches Josie look back at Hope with a look Hope’s not sure she wants to decipher. 

She doesn’t quite know for how long she stands there staring, but it feels like minutes after Josie and Landon have disappeared as she shakes the cobwebs from her mind, replaying the near kiss on a loop.

“You up for this, Hope?” Maya’s voice snaps her out of her reverie. 

“Yes — no—I guess,” she mutters. 

“That isn’t an answer,” Maya challenges her and Hope just shrugs as a girl approaches, tossing a five-dollar bill in the jar. She’s cute, Hope thinks. Not as cute as Josie, but - 

Leaning over to kiss the girl with a quick “hi” as she grabs the sides of her face, Hope’s lips barely make contact with the girl’s before she feels wetness. Coppery, iron wetness. 

“Oh my god, I’m sorry,” the girl shrieks, holding her hands up over her nose as the nosebleed erupts down her face. 

Hope looks around quickly, her eyes traveling over everyone as she looks for the familiar pair of brown eyes. Josie’s staring at her fifty yards away, her jaw set and it _burns_ , as Landon points to one of the carnival games that tested strength with a giant hammer. An eyebrow raised and Josie just smiles before turning back to Landon, a hand on his arm. 

“Damn, you really are cursed, aren’t you?” Maya laughs as the girl runs off toward the medic tent and Hope can only shrug, wiping the blood off of her lips. She can’t very easily tell Maya what a jealous Josie had just done to that poor girl. 

Maya whistles sharply at a group of boys from the football team standing near them. “Collins, you’re up. Make us some money.”

“Are you sure that’s okay?” Hope asks, because she really doesn’t want to be kissing anyone (except Josie) right now, but she also doesn’t want to back out. 

“It’s fine, he’s been dying for the job.”

“Thanks, Marshall,” the boy grins, jogging over. “Maya, if you happen to see Alicia...”

She shakes her head. “I’ll send her this way, but I’m not sure if that will increase your chances.” She tugs Hope away. “Come on. Since I’m guessing you don’t want to talk about it, Mom convinced our principal to sit in the dunk booth. So that should be fun.”

“Dunking the principal in a tank full of water in front of the entire town? Count me in,” Hope smiles. 

She purchases three balls for eight dollars from one of the girls on the swim team, standing behind the line as Alaric drags himself out of the tank onto the small seat. His Mystic Falls PE shirt clings to his chest and he groans. 

“Come on, Hope, take it easy on me,” he begins and Hope just bites her lip to suppress a smile. If only Josie could see her now. 

Hope tosses the first ball easily and it strikes true, dead center on the target and Alaric falls into the tank with a splash. 

“Beginner’s luck,” he comments, sitting back up on the seat as the crowd gathered around the tank cheers. 

“Oh yeah?” Hope says to him as she throws the second ball, dunking him once more. He pulls himself out of the tank, shaking his head as Maya begins a chant of “Marshall, Marshall, Marshall!” 

“Any last words before another swim?” she asks, throwing the ball up and down in her hand. 

“I hope you aren’t _cheating_ ,” he teases quietly before the seat drops out from under him as Hope’s third and final ball smacks into the target with a clang. 

“My god, Marshall, why haven’t you tried out for softball yet?” Maya asks her as the crowd cheers loudly. 

“Sports really aren't my thing, well, I guess flag football was the exception, but that was as a favor to the drowning victim over there. Sorry, Principal S!” Hope waves to him with a smile as Maya steers her toward the artists’ booths and more carnival games.

* * *

She walks home a few hours later carrying a stuffed wolf that she had won in an arm-wrestling contest with the wrestling team captain and a poured candle from a woman who made them out of a barn in her backyard. It smelled like the fall - apples and cinnamon and something about it reminded her so strongly of Josie that she knew she had to have it. 

Throwing the wolf into the open rocking chair on the porch, Hope sinks into the other one. It was too gorgeous of a night to spend it inside, she reasoned. 

Not that she was waiting for anything or anyone.

No, that would be foolish. She hadn’t seen Josie at all after the nosebleed debacle, not that she had been looking. Maya had kept her sufficiently distracted from looking for the two tall brunettes who were no doubt enjoying the festival together. 

But even as thoughts of Josie and Landon threaten to cloud and darken her decent mood, Josie appears on the long driveway, dressed in the same outfit from earlier with a denim jacket over her shoulders. 

“You wanna explain the nosebleed?” Hope asks as the siphon gets closer. Josie has the decency to look a bit ashamed, even as her cheeks blaze red and her eyes grow darker under Hope’s gaze. 

“She was fine with no lasting damage. Don’t worry,” Josie says cryptically, taking the seat next to Hope and placing the stuffed wolf in her lap. 

“New guard dog?” Josie deflects and Hope just laughs. Persephone was watching them from the front window, her paw scratching through the screen at the sight of Josie. “You know, you’re worth more than a five-dollar kiss from some random girl in town,” Josie allows, not meeting Hope’s eyes. 

“I think I can make those choices for myself,” Hope replies, her voice clipped as she drums her fingers on the arm of the rocking chair. She’s absolutely ignoring the swooping feeling in her stomach. “And besides, it was for charity. It meant nothing.” 

Josie looks like she wants to say more. And Hope wants her to. She wants her to ask about the _more_ implicit in their almost kiss. Ask her about the gravitational pull that Hope had felt from Josie, if Josie had felt it too. She wants to know if it was all for charity, for show. Or if it was something else. Wants to point out that Josie paid for four kisses she definitely didn’t get. Yet. 

“You’re the talk of the town with your impeccable aim,” Josie says instead and Hope laughs. 

“What’s the fun in having powers if I can’t use them when I want to? It was harmless.” _And he probably deserved it,_ she says to herself. Her voice drifts off before she remembers. “Hey, I, uh — I got you something.” 

Hope goes inside to the kitchen counter where she had deposited the paper bag containing the candle. She brings it out and holds it out to Josie, who takes it with an eyebrow raised. Her hand disappears into the bag, pulling out the glass holder that was decorated with swirls of white, standing out vividly against the red wax of the candle. 

“I love it,” Josie smiles, opening the lid to smell it. “And it smells like — like the school during autumn. When they make cinnamon rolls in the morning in the kitchen.” 

That’s what the smell was! How had Hope forgotten? A memory rushes forward at Josie’s words of herself and a younger Josie, maybe aged thirteen or fourteen, sneaking freshly baked cinnamon rolls one morning. They thought they had been so smooth and had gotten away with it, but Caroline and Alaric had taken one look at Josie and Hope’s faces, covered in icing and they had been punished, told to dust the shelves of the library with no magic with Lizzie cackling as she watched from an armchair. 

The memory stings as it weaves its way through Hope’s mind and she bites back the nostalgia, swallowing it deep. 

“Thank you, Hope.” Josie brings her back to now, to them on the porch, to an empty house and memories she carries that no one else can access. Josie’s thank you is so earnest, her gratitude in each word that Hope can barely take it. 

“The wolf is for you too,” Hope explains, doing her best to smile even though she’s sure it comes out as more of a grimace. “Persephone thought you would like it.” 

“Oh, she did? Did she?” The cat meows from inside, pacing back and forth on the windowsill, indignant about the exclusion. 

“We agreed,” Hope confirms. 

“Tell Persephone thank you, then,” Josie smiles, carefully setting the wolf atop her lap. 

“I will,” Hope promises. 

“Why a wolf?” Josie asks her. 

Hope shrugs. “I’m fond of them and something about howling at the moon seems so cathartic.”

Josie smiles, that smile that Hope has gotten used to seeing, whenever she’s revealed any information about the past or about herself. Normally, it makes her nervous, but tonight, she feels strangely at ease. Here, with Josie. The lost memories, Josie’s relationship with Landon and Malivore looming, it seems like tomorrow's problem. 


	4. four

November and December pass in a whirlwind of finals and Josie’s constant presence, now a near-nightly occurrence. Hope bites her tongue and refuses to ask about Landon and Josie’s life at Salvatore. It’s not her business. Not anymore, at least. She’s made a home here and it may be as welcoming as a sarcophagus, but it’s her own. Something that she can lay claim to. A place to rest her head and rebuild a life. 

(Hope knows though, deep down in her bones, that a home can also be a person too.) 

Josie leaves for Europe on a Tuesday, and Hope’s not the least bit grumpy, even if she snaps at Persephone twice. 

Two days later, by Christmas Day, she’s reached her limit of town carollers and fairy lights and dustings of snow and so she climbs into the BMW her father left in the garage, the engine purring deliciously as she peels out of the driveway. She packed for a week. 

She pretends she doesn’t know where she’s going for the first two hours of the drive, even if she’s headed firmly south. It’s not like she’s going to pop in and say hello. But all things considered, New Orleans is probably the least annoying place to survive the holidays. She doesn’t have to worry about snow or seeing Josie kissing Landon under the mistletoe. It might just be the safest place for her right now. 

And besides, Malivore hasn’t been sending any new monsters. She can take a damn road trip if she wants to. Next to her, firmly seated shotgun, Persephone purrs delightedly as Hope increases the speed — she’s almost growing fond of the damn cat. As she turns up the radio to blast the latest pop hit, Persephone looks over at her with judgment and Hope just smiles back, her laughter lost in the wind. 

She finds a bed and breakfast on the edge of town that somehow wasn’t booked up for the holiday, paying the woman at the concierge desk slash front hallway with a wad of hundred-dollar-bills that she may or may not have counted correctly. 

“All alone, dearie?” the woman asks and Hope bites her lip, weighing her words because she was back in her hometown, surrounded by so many damn memories so she wasn’t alone, not really. 

“I’m surprising my family tomorrow night. I told them I couldn’t come home this year because of school,” Hope lies easily, a weight descending in her chest with the ease of the fib. 

It’s simpler this way, simpler than telling people truths no one wants to hear. _I’m alone, my family and my friends don’t know I exist and the one person who might care is an ocean away._

She spends the night flipping through the channels, grateful for Persephone sprawled out across her lap, warm and comforting. The sandwiches she brought barely taste stale, and she finally finds one movie that isn’t all about Christmas. It’s better than nothing. 

By the time she falls asleep, she’s made it through three sandwiches and two movies. When she wakes up again, sun is shining in through the blinds. The woman at the concierge desk is still the same, and sends her off after wishing her happy holidays. 

Hope waits until she’s back inside the car to mutter “unlikely.” She wonders what the twins are doing right now. Christmas lights in Paris? New Year’s from the London Eye? Had Josie kissed Landon goodbye under the mistletoe she knew Dorian hung each year? 

The days between Christmas and New Years blur together and Hope finds herself visiting the Abattoir more than is probably healthy, renting out a room in the French Quarter just down the street from her family home. She’s careful to wear a hood over her head, not that they would recognize her anyway. She just looks like another moody teenager angry at the holidays. She picks up gifts for Persephone and Josie. Far too many gifts for Josie. A sweater here, an old grimoire found in the back of a magical bookstore there, a new box for storing herbs and sage. She hoped she wasn’t going overboard. 

She’s outside of Freya and Keelin’s house on New Year's Eve, the sounds of a party drifting through the air and Hope’s heart nearly seizes. They’re happy. So fucking happy. Niklas has started walking, and Rebecca and Marcel fly in from New York, and outside, hidden under an excellent cloaking spell, Hope watches them. Keelin sets out an extravagant table, filled with food, and Kol and Davina arrive late — his fault, Hope hears her say as they enter. 

Keelin looks back once, in Hope’s direction, but then she shakes her head and steps inside. Hope’s cloaking charm is well done enough to fool her aunts, she made sure of that. Part of her wants to shift, to run, but she can’t. Inside a city like this, it would be far too dangerous, and sneaking out the Bayou is not an option. The moon on her shoulder marks her clearly as a Crescent wolf, and the pack would have questions. Questions she’s not ready or willing to answer. 

After successfully convincing the young store clerk that yes, she was twenty-one years old she just had a young face, Hope collapses on the queen-sized bed, cradling the bottle of red. Persephone meows at her with a glare, her green eyes narrowing slightly and Hope just asks her “What?” to which the cat curls up in a ball on the extra pillow. 

Hope couldn’t say what time it was when the phone rings, breaking herself out the trashy rom-com she was watching. The cardigan of haze that she wears around herself from the wine is comforting, but the sight of Josie’s name on the Caller ID is an even stronger blast of _home_ that nearly takes Hope’s breath away. 

“Josie,” she answers, without even a hello. 

“Happy New Years, Hope,” Josie says, her voice cloaked in sleep, the rasp that lingers on her words making Hope ache in all the wrong places. 

“Does it count if it’s already passed for you?” Hope teases, and she can almost hear Josie roll her eyes. 

“That’s why I’m the one who’s calling you,” Josie replies, as if it's the most obvious thing in the world. 

“Happy New Years, Jo,” Hope says, her voice barely above a whisper. This reminder of everything she’s missing is vivid, but she also can’t help the smile on her lips. She misses Josie in a visceral way, in every fiber of being. She has a thousand questions, but settles on the easiest. 

“Where are you?” 

“Milan,” Josie says, “Mom and Lizzie have been shopping like crazy. And I’ve escaped to the Duomo far too many times.”

“Tell me about it,” Hope sighs, as she settles deeper into the covers, her eyes closing. 

Josie chuckles. “That’s what you want to hear about? Really?”

“Yes,” Hope confirms. There are a lot of things she doesn’t say. _I missed you. I want to hear your voice._

Josie obliges, and her voice is a little raspy and raw, probably from a long night out, but she doesn’t stop talking. She tells Hope that the cathedral took over six hundred years to complete and that it’s one of the largest in the world. 

“I think I’d burst into flames if I tried to step foot in there,” Hope replies dryly and Josie’s laugh fills her ears. She had missed that laugh. 

“I think you would be fine,” Josie levels back and Hope decides not to interrupt her anymore. She tells Hope all about how she was able to run off while Caroline and Lizzie ducked into the high-end retail shops, finding herself at the Santa Maria delle Grazie, where Da Vinci’s Last Supper mural is on display. She jokes that Lizzie wouldn’t know the difference between a cannoli and a tiramisu if it wasn’t for her influence because desserts were _always_ prioritized during their outings. She tells her about the Loggia dei Mercanti, whispers turned loud, and about Leonardo’s Vineyard, and Hope can almost imagine herself there with Josie. It’s a pipe dream, of course, something that could never be real, but it’s still nice to think about.

“You should sleep, Jo,” Hope says after what feels like hours or maybe just seconds on the phone with Josie. 

“There are a lot of things I should be doing,” Josie fires back, but neither of them make any moves to say goodnight to each other. 

It’s much, much too late by the time they finally end the call — or Lizzie does, by announcing rather loudly that Josie should come join them for breakfast and get off the phone with her _lover._ Hope knows that Lizzie thinks that Josie’s talking to Landon — but still. 

“I’m not —” Josie begins, her voice muffled slightly as she leans away from the phone, but Lizzie just groans in the background. 

“Say goodnight to the dust-pile, Josie! I’m hungry!” 

When she falls asleep that night, the residual comfort of Josie’s voice— and the merlot — are responsible for the first decent night’s sleep she’s had in what feels like forever.

* * *

She stays in New Orleans for a few more days. 

Once she’s back, she shifts as soon as Persephone is fed and happily napping on the window sill. She’s been restless, and the pent up stress of the last few weeks is hitting her, making her anxious. 

She runs through the woods for an hour, maybe two, maybe longer, and she feels a lot lighter when she’s back home, turns on the porch without a second thought, shifting back to human before she has a chance to grab a change of clothes. Not that it mattered. The nearest neighbor was half a mile away. 

A glass crashes to the ground, shattering, and she’s met with angry brown eyes, glittering even in the dim light of the moon. Josie’s cheeks burn red and Hope raises an eyebrow, amusement dying on her face as she sees Josie’s expression. 

“You lied to me,” Josie says, betrayal dripping from her lips and the shame burns hot in Hope’s stomach, but it was for Josie’s own good, really. She couldn’t — the less Josie knew about her the better. Josie holds out a jacket from the pile of clothes behind her, and Hope slips it on. Josie looks anywhere but at her, her weight shifting from one foot to the next. 

“I never lied to you. I merely neglected to elaborate,” Hope replies, her jaw set and her arms crossed over her chest. Josie paces across the porch, her head hung as she bites her lips, looking up at Hope with her mouth open before closing it and opening it again, pointing at Hope as she steps closer to her, her finger digging into her chest. Hope looks up at Josie, sees her eyes shining and Hope won’t, can’t, look deeply into them. 

“You’re a hybrid, Hope. You know how rare you are and you just, you lied to _me.”_

“Josie, I—” Hope reaches out to grab Josie’s arms, but the siphon spins away, her pacing continuing. 

“I don’t want to hear it, Hope — I thought we were getting somewhere — I thought we were getting closer to —” 

Josie breaks off and Hope glances up at the sky, away from Josie, choosing her words and fighting the urge to say more, to say anything, and yet knowing that it’s better this way. When she looks back, Josie is gone and Hope nods to herself, picking up the pile of clothes that she had tossed on one of the rocking chairs. If she slams the door when she gets inside the mansion, that’s her own business.

* * *

She doesn’t see Josie for four days. Hope may or may not wait on the porch each night with Persephone on her lap, demanding scratches behind her ears with frequent chitters. Hope may or may not cook herself meals that are far too large for one person. Hope may or may not glance at her phone every couple of minutes, day and night, waiting for something, anything from Josie.

Hope’s in a horrible mood, even if she’s not going to admit to that anytime soon. 

On the fourth night, Josie shows up. It’s late already, and Hope is out on the porch. She’s carrying her bag, and she looks determined. “I’ve done some research,” she says slowly, clutching at the bag over her shoulder until her knuckles gleam white in the light, “are you going to lie to me again?”

Hope has been pondering this question for the last four days. “No,” she says, “I’ll tell you if what you found out is true. But, I thought I made it clear that I’m not going to volunteer things.”

Josie glares at her for several seconds before sitting down, depositing her bag at her feet. She crosses and uncrosses her legs, trying to get comfortable before turning fully to Hope, thumbs picking at the skin of her cuticles in thought. 

“There have only ever been two other hybrids. Klaus and Hayley Mikaelson. So I started there. The family tree was easy enough to research when the Mikaelson’s are basically magical royalty.” Hope snorts at that, her head balanced on her palm, watching Josie. She was close, so damn close to figuring it all out. 

“And then I found a footnote that Hayley used to go by Marshall. Hayley Marshall.”

The silence lingers for several seconds before Hope makes her choice. Josie will put the pieces together, eventually, so why not help her? “I’m their daughter.”

“You’re Hope Mikaelson.” Josie breathes and it’s said with such wonder and reverence, the consonants and the vowels flowing out of Josie’s mouth like a lover’s caress and god, what Hope wouldn’t give to hear Josie say her name like that a thousand more times. 

A weight lifts from Hope’s shoulders, from her heart at that moment, so she gets up, holding open the front door for Josie, trying to bite back a grin. It was one thing for Alaric to know who she was — her family, her legacy — and while Josie wasn’t anywhere near knowing the whole story, the revelation feels freeing. 

“I got some of that horrible cookie dough ice cream you liked —it’s in the freezer, if you want it?” 

Josie doesn’t skip a beat at the abrupt change in conversation. “You know I’ll never say no to ice cream,” she replies, getting up from the rocking chair and grabbing her bag. Hope turns to look at it and then meets Josie’s eyes. 

“That looks like an overnight bag, Josie,” she comments, Persephone squeaking delightedly at their guest, weaving circles through Josie’s legs and leaping up on the kitchen island to demand pets. 

Josie turns away from Hope, a hand at her mouth before facing her. “I don’t want to be at the school tonight,” she admits, cryptically. And there’s definitely something she isn’t telling Hope, who feels her face flush and her stomach swoop as she reaches into the freezer. She purposefully moves around the kitchen slowly, her back to Josie, grabbing down bowls and then pivots to grab two spoons from the cutlery drawer. 

“It’s a good thing there are about eighty guestrooms in here then,” Hope hands her the spoon with a flourish. “You know you’re welcome here anytime.” 

Josie back in her home is definitely a good thing, she silently thinks as they dig into their ice cream. Hope missed her. A little. ( A lot.)

“So why are we muddling through and not asking Freya fucking Mikaelson for help? You know, the oldest, most powerful witch in the world?” Josie asks her suddenly. 

Hope chuckles. “Keelin would get a real kick out of you calling her that.”

Josie raises an eyebrow, pointing her spoon at Hope. “That doesn’t really answer my question.”

“There’s something it doesn’t say in the books, because I’m not in them anymore. They died for me. My mom and my dad, they sacrificed themselves so I could live. And I don’t want the rest of my family to try that, too. Or feel guilty for not remembering me, if we can’t make it work.”

“You’re the reason we siphoned the Hollow from Klaus, aren’t you?” 

“Josie, it’s — we don’t have to talk about that,” Hope says quickly, her breath catching and her throat closing up. 

Josie reaches over and grabs her hand, holding it tightly. “Your family is legendary, Hope. Not just for everything that they’ve done, but for all of the pain that they’ve suffered. You don’t have to grieve alone.” 

Maybe she stabs her spoon into the ice cream a little harshly. Maybe it bends a bit in her hand. Maybe Josie’s hand is too warm and soft over her own. “We’re keeping my family out of this, Josie. At least until we know more.”

“Stubborn,” Josie sighs into her ice cream. “But fine. With the _new_ knowledge of you being a hybrid, I did some more research and found some spells we can try. Tomorrow morning, though. Something about the “sun’s first rays” in one of the books. We can watch the sunrise together,” Josie wiggles her eyebrows as a joke, but Hope feels her face warm. 

“Yeah, okay, that — that sounds good.” Smooth Hope, so smooth. 

Hope throws their spoons in the dishwasher and Persephone meows at them from the top of the staircase, clearly intent on bed even though that opens up a whole host of images in Hope’s mind as Josie follows her up the stairs. Hope grabs some sheets and a comforter out of a linen closet halfway down the hall, turning into the room right next to hers. 

It was spacious, decorated with a white chaise lounge and wardrobe, complete with a balcony that opened up to the back of the house. Tossing the comforter onto the lounge, Hope turns to the bed. Josie drops her bag and grabs the other side of the sheet. They work wordlessly and Hope chances glances up at Josie when she’s sure the siphon isn’t looking. The tips of Josie’s ears and cheeks tinge pink and Hope bites her lip, totally caught staring, but she merely fluffs Josie’s pillow before stuttering a goodnight. She needed a shower. A cold one. 

Josie catches her just as she makes it to the doorway and she spins at Josie’s voice. 

“You hurt me — before when you didn’t tell me,” Josie’s sitting on the bed, her hands in her lap and thank god for the distance from the door to the bed because it’s easier this way. Without being so close to Josie. Josie doesn’t elaborate, she doesn’t have to. Hope knows what she did. Knows why she did it. 

“I know, I’m sorry. I just — self-preservation, you know?”

“You have a family, Hope. A family who deserves to know about you,” Josie pleads and Hope feels her chest grow tight. 

Josie wasn’t going to let this go. “I’ll see you in the morning, Josie. And I’m right next door if you need anything.” 

“Goodnight, Hope,” Josie sighs and Hope closes the door behind her, resting a hand on the wood before heading into her room. 

She changes into her pajamas, brushes her teeth and washes her face, and swears she hears footsteps outside of her door once, twice, three times, but even straining to hear Josie in the room next door yields nothing. She can make out the sound of a heartbeat, strong and sure. And breathing that slowly, slowly, levels out. 

She wishes she could sleep, but the dreams she had about Josie from the first night they met play in her mind again. Josie, writhing underneath her. Hope, marking her as her own with a bite to her shoulder that leaves the deep imprint of teeth, her Crescent moon mark sparkling in the moonlight. 

Fuck. She needs to get over this, but it’s not happening any time soon. 

So, she’ll just ignore it, and tomorrow Josie will return to the school. And Hope will go back to roaming through an empty house. It’s all going to be fine. Totally fine. 


	5. five

Hope sleeps terribly, her dreams filled with a silent Josie and the looming figures of her family hanging around the edges of her vision. By the time her phone is beeping in her ear that it’s five in the morning, she nearly falls out of bed. In the other room, next to hers, too close, too far, she can still hear Josie’s even breathing and breathes a sigh of relief. It’s not like Josie would have left in the middle of the night, but Hope has still been afraid that any wrong move would make Josie leave again. Which would be good. Josie would be far safer far away from Hope. It would still feel terrible. 

She makes coffee and downs two cups, and is grateful that her tribrid metabolism doesn’t really require all that much sleep. Persephone brushes around her feet, jumping into her lap as soon as Hope sits down at the table, cradling the mug of coffee in her hands. Three cups wasn’t enough for a caffeine overdose, right? Not for a tribrid, anyway. 

Breakfast, she decides, jumping up ten minutes later, jostling a very grumpy Persephone. She should make breakfast. Josie’s her guest. It’s polite. She finds waffle mix in one of the cabinets and blueberries in the fridge, and waves her hands in the air and batter is poured into the waffle maker and Hope feels as if she can breathe a little easier. 

Josie joins her at half-past five, her hair tousled in that perfect sleepy kind of way and Hope feels the air rush out of her lungs, nearly dropping the container of blueberries she was holding. Persephone chirps at her, eager to catch and play with any stray berries that come her way and Hope’s drawn out of her reverie when Josie approaches her, a warm smile on her face. 

“Good morning,” she says, her voice low and husky in a way that must come from sleep but certainly makes Hope think of plenty of other things involving a bed. 

She needs to snap out of this. She has no idea how. 

“Good morning,” she manages, “I made breakfast — waffles — I made waffles. Do you want waffles?”

Josie smiles, the kind of tired and gentle smile that Hope can’t look away from and she feels warmth settle low in her stomach. “Definitely. I love waffles.”

_ I know,  _ Hope thinks, but she doesn’t say it. Not this time. 

Last night’s revelation still hangs over them and Hope is uneasy, unsure of herself and moving around Josie in her house is a lot, but whatever Josie has planned for this morning is making her wary because she isn’t sure that — she isn’t ready for what it could mean when everyone gets their memory of her back. What it could mean for her and Josie. For Josie and Landon. For her and Landon. 

Hope follows Josie to the porch, the cicadas serenading them as the fog gives way to the coming sunrise. She spreads a blanket for them and Josie sits cross-legged, breathing deeply with her eyes closed. Persephone watches from the window. “Okay, it’s nearly time,” Josie says, opening her eyes. “Are you ready?” 

“No, yes, I don’t know — maybe?” Hope’s hands are shaking, ever so slightly, when they intertwine their fingers. She lay her free hand on her lap with her palm facing upward to mirror Josie’s posture. They keep one side of their bodies open, in Josie’s words, hands clasped on one side to call forth magic into themselves. She’s not sure what kind of outcome she’s hoping for — maybe she wants it to fail. It would be easier — to keep living this solitary life with Persephone and a Josie that sleeps over and smiles at her like she hung the stars, even at five in the morning. 

Josie whispers the words to the spell, her voice melodic and Hope repeats them, her power moving back and forth between herself and Josie like a semiconductor and when Hope finally opens her eyes, Josie is peering at her serenely. 

“Did it work?” Hope asks as she goes to drop Josie’s hand. She can’t — it won’t — her fingers won’t unclasp from Josie’s. “Let go, Jo,” Hope says with a laugh. 

“You let go,” Josie replies. 

Hope tries, again, to unclench her fingers, but her grip on Josie’s hand persists. “I can’t,” she says. 

“Fuck,” Josie curses, and something inside of Hope clenches tightly. “I can’t let go either,” Josie continues, “and it didn’t work. You’re still — there’s still a block on everything.”

“Was there something about this in the book?” Hope questions, doing her best not to sound too frantic and trying in vain, yet again, to let go of Josie’s hand. 

“ _ Transuerso _ ,” Josie says, her free hand moving over their clasped palms and glowing red, but the hold remains firm and Hope blinks slowly, biting her lip. 

“You could have just told me you wanted to hold my hand,” Hope tries to joke, but neither of them laughs. It’s not that she minds holding Josie’s hand, which is warm, and soft, and feels very nice and in any other circumstance, she would relish in holding Josie’s hand but — 

“Let’s check the book,” Josie says, and she rifles through the book by her side with her free hand, skimming the pages quickly. “Oh no, okay,” Josie exhales loudly, “we  _ might _ have done the spell to bind one person to another for twenty-four hours. It’s not my fault your aunt’s old grimoire’s pages are stuck together.” Josie’s voice rises sharply. 

“Can you siphon it?” Hope questions, a headache forming behind her eyes. 

Their hands glow red for a moment, but nothing else happens. Josie shakes her head. “We put too many stabilizing elements up.”

“We should have put less,” Hope mutters to herself, but Josie just stares at her with venom in her eyes. 

“Oh, I’m sorry that I didn’t want to do a spell potentially affecting  _ everyone’s _ memories of you that could be super unstable. Silly me for caring,” Josie bites out. “Anyway, I need to go to school, so you’ll have to come with me.”

“No, you’re coming with me. I have a test,” Hope says, yanking her hand back towards herself. 

“In what? History? English? I have a test too and I can’t miss mine. It's Magical Chemistry,” Josie counters, trying to cross her arms over her chest and failing miserably because one hand was still stuck to Hope. Hope’s hand comes dangerously close to grazing Josie’s chest and Hope tries to move backward as if burned. 

“Well, clearly you didn’t study hard enough because this happened!” she yells, trying to throw her hands up in the air and nearly hitting Josie in the face with their clasped hands. 

“That’s not even — I have to get to school,” Josie says, glancing at the watch on her wrist, “like — ten minutes ago.” 

“Fine, let’s just go,” Hope says, getting to her feet. Josie gets up, too, but their balance is off, and they end up stumbling. Hope catches them, her free arm wrapping around Josie’s waist, and the action definitely brings them closer together. They’re pressed against each other, and Hope can feel the rise and fall of Josie’s chest against her body, can feel the soft skin of her waist under her hand, and god, she’s in so much trouble. 

She lets go almost frantically, taking half a step away. 

“I’m driving,” Hope says, pulling Josie with her back toward the house to grab her backpack. Persephone moves between their legs as they walk and Josie waves a hand to magick them outfits that aren’t pajamas. Hope would be mad at her if Josie hadn’t gotten her outfit nearly perfect, down to her jeans and her favorite boots. Josie dressed herself in the tiniest plaid skirt and white blouse under a navy blue sweater and Hope  _ really _ can’t fault herself for staring a bit too long at Josie’s legs. 

“What?” Josie asks. 

“You — uh, you might get cold,” Hope tries to recover lamely, rubbing her free hand on the back of her neck as she bends down for her backpack that she discarded at the foot of the staircase the night before. 

“I appreciate the concern, Hope, but I’ll be fine. Now, come on!” Josie tugs her back toward the front door and Hope lets herself be pulled. They make it to the school relatively unscathed and if Hope wasn’t sure she was going to get a detention for an unexcused absence, she would be focusing more on how nice it feels to drive through Mystic Falls holding Josie’s hand. She resists the urge to trace designs on Josie’s bare thigh with her index finger, the other hand firmly on the steering wheel. And despite the tiny argument at Hope’s house, the ghost of a smile lingers on Josie’s lips as she drives. 

It slides away though, once Hope is parked and they make their way through the halls. Hope knows she should be wary, should be terrified of being back here, but it feels so much like  _ home _ , especially with Josie by her side that she swallows heavily and allows Josie to pull her along. Hope notices how Josie hunches over slightly at the sight of Landon just up ahead, but the siphon says nothing, and grips Hope’s hand even tighter. 

“Why is there a Muggle stuck to your hand, Josette? Isn’t this the girl from the football game?” Lizzie’s voice breaks through the crowded hallway and Josie turns quickly, nearly making Hope stumble over her feet, but she recovers with a hand to Josie’s arm. 

“She’s not — I don’t — it’s just for today,” Josie answers, as heads turn their way. She had made no secret of her sexual identity and wore her pansexuality proud, so she was used to the looks she got when she had held hands with Penelope in the hallway. People knew Penelope though, Hope reasons. Everyone here has no idea who she is. 

“What the hell are you doing? You can’t just bring her here. It’s like if Harry tried to bring the Dursleys to Hogwarts— no Muggles allowed,” Lizzie breathes through her teeth as she approaches, moving through the tide of people faster than Hope had ever seen Lizzie move.

“The Muggle can hear you,” Hope replies, smiling at Lizzie. 

Josie sighs. “This is Hope, Lizzie. She’s a monster hunter. She helped me take down a monster on the way back here, but we ended up stuck together for the next twenty-four hours.” Josie holds up their clasped hands and Lizzie’s eyes narrow. As far as cover stories go, they could do worse. Maybe. Or better. Probably. 

“I thought you went to Mystic Falls,” Lizzie remarks with an eyebrow raised. The  _ one _ time Lizzie Saltzman cares to stick her head out of her ass it’s for this. 

“I multitask,” Hope replies breezily, stepping closer to Josie. 

“Well, you’re a better accessory than that dusty vulture that Josie has been hanging around with lately. Where is the immortal emu?” 

“We had a fight,” Josie mutters, under her breath. Hope hears her just fine. So does Lizzie, apparently, if her eye roll is anything to go by. 

“You can do so much better.” The kind of smile that Hope has learned means danger many, many years ago appears on her face as she focuses on Hope. “Are you single, Hope?”

“I —yes,” Hope stutters. Her boyfriend can’t remember her, and she’s no longer in love with him. That makes her technically single, probably. 

“Maybe she can date Landon,” Lizzie offers, directing her gaze at Josie as if Hope wasn’t there. Hope breathes a little easier. Anything else she might have imagined Lizzie saying would have been worse. She feels Josie’s hand clench in her own again and looks over to see the discomfort on the brunette’s face. 

“As much as I would love Josie’s sloppy seconds,” Hope begins and Lizzie laughs (interjecting with “I like this girl already!”), Hope continues, “he really isn’t my type.” 

Josie’s hand relaxes, slightly, and Hope feels relief. This is going to be horrible, she realizes. An entire day stuck at Salvatore School, holding Josie’s hand, so close to her. 

Josie turns to look at her once Lizzie has disappeared. “Not your type?” she questions.

Hope shakes her head. “I’m sorry, did you want me to explain to your sister that he used to be my boyfriend, but after jumping into Malivore, I figured out I really don’t have feelings for him anymore and he’s now dating you?”

“You don’t?” Josie questions, and her gaze is focused on Hope with the kind of intensity that she finds both disconcerting and intriguing. 

“I told you, you have nothing to worry about from me,” Hope says, thinking of the first night, in the woods, when Josie smelled like vanilla and the coming rainstorm and Hope told her far too many secrets. 

“Hope, I —” 

“I thought we were late to class,” Hope says airly, glancing around the hallway rather than looking anywhere at Josie. Damnit, she was being far too transparent, far too open, just like she had at the Founder’s Day Festival as she had breathed in Josie’s scent and nearly kissed her in front of the entire town. In front of Landon. 

She’s too emotional. The thought of leaving is getting harder and harder. 

Class. They have to get to class. She’s grateful that they’re starting with Vampire Lore, because listening to Malachi drone on and on about all the things he’d seen — in his time on earth that spanned nearly eight hundred years — almost feels relaxing. At least, it gives Hope something else to think about other than the way Josie’s hand feels in hers. 

Good. Nice. Warm. Soft. Amazing. Awesome. Breathtaking. 

Anyway. Vampire Lore. 

The day passes by in a surreal blur and while Hope knew she would miss being back at Salvatore, she didn’t think she would miss the dusty library where Josie spent their lunch hour or the crowded classrooms with Lizzie Saltzman glancing back at her every few moments. Hope stuck her tongue out at Lizzie more than once, then resorts to more aggressive gestures with her middle finger.

Emma just stares at Hope — Josie’s explanation that she was visiting the school as a potential new student an accepted lie that rolled off of Josie’s tongue far too easily. 

It’s an odd kind of a day. Salvatore School has been her home for over a decade, and every face, every nook and cranny and every hallway is eerily familiar. And yet, she feels like a stranger now. 

She smiles at Michelle, and then stops, because Michelle doesn’t know that Hope is all too aware of the anniversary of her mother’s death approaching. Doesn’t remember crying in the girls’ bathroom last year when Hope came in and tried to comfort her. 

Alyssa Chang doesn’t glare at her like she used to, just looks mildly irritated and keeps on walking. 

Dorian doesn’t give her his usual grin as they pass by him in the hallways, and that stings. Again. 

And on top of that, there’s Josie’s hand in hers, warm and comforting. Soothing and calming, even as Hope’s heart beats fast, way too fast from the way the siphoner is so close to her.

And yet, it’s surprisingly easy to get away with it, all in all, and before Hope knows it, the day’s over, and it’s just her and Josie, standing outside in the courtyard. 

“I’m assuming you have to sleep over, right?” Hope asks, and she tries to make herself sound bored, but the hopeful tone breaks free, wrapping around her words and she hates it. Stupid, stupid. 

“The spell said twenty-four hours, didn’t it? That’s tomorrow morning at six then.” Josie bites her bottom lip, eyelashes sparkling in the afternoon sunlight. She seemed amused. 

“I — uh, I guess you’re right.” 

She’ll be fine. Totally fine. In bed. With Josie. In one bed. It’s going to be fine. She can handle this. 

“Food,” she blurts out, “we need food.”

Josie raises an eyebrow at her. “Are you going to cook for us?” 

Josie’s teasing, Hope can tell, her eyes glittering with mirth, and god, she’s missed this version of Josie, the one who was her friend and who would make jokes with her and about her. “Not tonight,” she replies, “maybe the next time we need to screw a spell up.”

“I’ll take you up on that offer,” Josie smiles, as they make their way back to the car, Josie sliding in after Hope. 

Hope stops to get them Thai food on the way back home, grabbing some gyoza for Persephone. Josie smiles at her in an unguarded way when Hope asks her what dish she would like, knowing Josie was going to choose the vegetarian red curry even as she asked her. They get Thai coffees and mango sticky rice and it’s really enough food to feed a small army and not two girls and one cat, but Hope hands over the money with a grin. 

The drive back to her place has the sky glittering brilliantly oranges and pinks and Hope sees Josie’s gaze unfocus as they pull down the driveway to her house. 

They eat at the kitchen island and Josie is still so damn close to her and her perfume is mixing with the scent of the food and Hope tries to hide her smile with a sip of water, but Josie catches her and grins back. 

It’s easy — too easy for them to exist like this and Hope can’t help but feel the question tear out of her, knowing it will break the mood. 

“Landon didn’t — you didn’t tell me you had a fight,” Hope begins. 

“Hmm,” is all Josie says, picking at her rice. “He doesn’t agree with some of my choices. Regarding you.” 

“Jo, how many times do I have to tell you —”

“I know, Hope. I just — it feels right with you — I mean,” Josie pauses, her hair a curtain of brown falling between them as she glances down at her place. “It feels right spending all this time with you to make us remember you. It feels important and no one is going to tell me how I’m going to spend my time.” 

Hope’s heart beats rapid-fire fast at every single one of Josie’s words. She’s in so much trouble.

“I never gave you your Christmas presents, you know,” she says to Josie later as they’re clearing the dishes together. Hope just waves her hand and they fly into the cabinets, spotlessly clean.

Josie turns to her, a smile on her face and Hope pulls her upstairs to the guest bedroom where the gifts are spread out on the bed. Josie runs her hand across the sweater, the yellow cable-knit material would work perfectly with her hair and eyes. She lingers at the grimoire and Hope feels her face burn because it was exactly like Freya’s, only it was blank and full of blank pages for anything and everything that Josie could come up with. Lastly, she walks to the wooden box on the bed that Persephone was sniffing with concern, filled with sage and lavender. Josie brings her free hand up to her lips before turning back to Hope and nearly tackling her with a one-armed hug. 

“They’re perfect,” Josie breathes in her ear before she pulls apart, her hand lingering on Hope’s arm. “Even if Persephone is unsure of the box.” 

“She’s just jealous it doesn't have treats in it,” Hope states sourly and Persephone just stares at her with her big green eyes. 

“This is a lot better than treats,” Josie says, “even if Persephone disagrees.” Persephone is too busy to disagree, taking advantage of Josie’s free side to jump up onto her arm and start purring happily. Hope wishes she weren’t a bit jealous of the cat and could jump into Josie’s arms like that. 

* * *

It’s pitch black outside by the time they stand next to each other, more than a little awkwardly, in front of Hope’s bed. 

“I’ll — uh — just,” Hope waves her free hand and pajamas appear on them. She gives Josie a tank top and shorts and gives herself the same and Hope desperately tries to avoid looking at Josie’s chest or legs. 

“It gets warm in here with all of the covers, but I can turn the fan on,” Hope offers at Josie’s raised eyebrow when she glances down at herself. She exhales a small laugh and then glances back at Hope. Hope isn’t used to the way Josie is looking at her. It’s like the day at the festival. It’s like when she was inches away from Josie’s face. 

“Make yourself comfortable,” Hope croaks out as Persephone watches them from her spot at the foot of Hope’s bed, observing Hope with a look that tells the tribrid that even she knew how hard this night would be for Hope’s fragile self-control. 

“Get into the bed, Hope,” Josie says after she’s climbed in, holding the comforter up in the air for Hope to join her. They’re not laying particularly close, barely skin to skin and Hope always knew that she ran warm but she feels like she’s on fire right now touching Josie’s hand. 

“I’m sorry for — for the spell and for today. I know being back at school might have — it must have been hard,” Josie speaks into the darkness. 

“It was fine,” Hope says, “nothing we could do about it,” and she’s surprised just how much she means it. Josie, next to her, in her bed is more than enough to let her forget about all other worries. 

“Can we — just, come here, Hope,” Josie says a bit forcefully, pulling their hands closer to her body. Hope lets herself be tugged closer to Josie and she inhales sharply. Their hands lay clasped between them. 

“I always sleep better with someone close to me,” she admits and Hope swallows deeply. Her head is right next to Josie’s on the pillow and all Josie has to do is turn it slightly to the side, which she does, Hope realizes, and their noses are nearly touching. They’re sharing the same breath, again, and Hope feels her lungs constricting and her skin grows warm and Josie’s watching her, moonlight reflected in her eyes. Hope can’t look away, she isn’t strong enough and she’s mesmerized by the galaxies swirling in Josie’s irises and Josie doesn’t seem to be breathing. 

“Hope,” Josie begins quietly. 

Hope wants to know a million things but they all begin and end with how Josie’s lips would feel against hers, underneath hers, how her tongue would feel sliding against Josie’s. Josie brings a hand up to Hope’s cheek, tracing her skin with her fingers and thumb, every touch a lightning strike, and Hope really might break from the feel of it, but all she says out loud as Josie’s face moves closer is " you’re with Landon" and the spell is broken. 

Josie turns from her, looking away but doesn’t move away from Hope, merely backs up more into her. A heavy silence permeates the air between them and it’s nothing like the crackling energy that always swirls around Hope when she’s with Josie. It’s filled with unsaid words and uncomfortable truths and nearly a decade's worth of memories that Hope carries alone. 

She hears Josie say goodnight to her, but it sounds far away and low, even with her wolf hearing. She also thinks she hears  _ he isn’t you _ , but she’s nearly asleep and probably just imagined it. 

They sleep with their clasped hands together on Josie’s hip and Hope can’t help herself sink into the feeling of Josie’s back at her front, how their legs slot together and how she can smell the orange blossom in Josie’s shampoo. She sleeps even better than she did on New Year's Eve, her chest rising and falling with Josie’s and when Hope wakes, they're wrapped around each other — Josie’s arm is slung across Hope’s stomach and her legs are wrapped around Hope’s and Hope can feel her heart rate accelerate. She tells her traitorous heart to slow down as she counts one hundred breaths from Josie, her lips dangerously close to Josie’s forehead. 

They’re no longer stuck together, Hope notes, with an arm underneath Josie’s body that she knows she needs to get back or else it will fall asleep. She could go back to sleep and savor this feeling of Josie wrapped around her. But she can’t — her self-control is fragile at best and it’s never great around Josie to begin with, let alone a sleeping Josie whose face is a mask of serenity. Especially after what nearly happened last night. She brushes her lips against Josie’s forehead and then extricates her arm as delicately as she can. Persephone takes the opportunity to jump into Hope’s spot, nuzzling near Josie with a soft purr. 

“Traitor,” she whispers under her breath before she creeps out of her bedroom. She steps lightly down the stairs, heading to the kitchen to turn on the lights and start a pot of coffee. Josie joins her in just the same way she did yesterday, bleary-eyed and yawning, her arms stretched above her head as she comes into the kitchen at six-thirty. 

“Remind me to steal your mattress to take back home with me,” she smiles, inhaling the coffee that Hope hands to her. 

“Mmm, that’s my mattress though,” Hope replies slowly, narrowing her eyes. 

“I’ll have to do it when your back is turned, I guess. So, we aren’t stuck together anymore,” Josie says, as if it wasn’t the only topic on either of their minds. 

“So it would seem,” Hope says and she bites her lip in the silence. She doesn’t want to think about falling asleep last night next to Josie. About the almost kiss. About the way her breath hitched and Josie’s breathing grew shallow. It’s all she’s been thinking about since she woke up. 

“It was fun,” Josie says with a smile and Hope turns from her to spin to the fridge, pulling out yogurt for herself and grabbing some bread to toast and peanut butter and an apple for Josie. That had always been one of her favorite breakfasts when they were younger. 

“Fun’s one word for it,” Hope says, placing everything down on the table.

“So, there are advantages to you knowing everything about me,” Josie says, reaching for the peanut butter with a grin. 

“Old habits die hard, I think,” Hope replies and this is okay. They’re just going to ignore everything. Cool cool. She can do that. 

“Landon and I aren’t — he’s — it’s complicated,” Josie says, wringing the peanut butter jar in her hands without looking up at Hope. Curtains of her dark hair fall between them before Josie glances up. 

“We don’t have to talk about it, Jo,” Hope says in a low voice, barely above a whisper. 

“We should though,” Josie pushes, her hands gripping the marble of the kitchen island. Hope focuses on her hands then, which is a bad idea. She looks up and sighs, but Josie continues speaking. “We just have to get everyone’s memories back first.” 

“I — yeah, sure, Josie.” 

Hope swallows, her mouth dry, and there are a hundred things she’d like to say, but she doesn’t. 

This Josie is so determined, so earnest, so willing to risk everything — including her relationship with Landon — that Hope feels herself nodding silently. 

She isn’t sure if she wants everyone to have their memories back — if this safe space that she’s built with Josie could withstand the tidal wave of emotions and feelings that will come rushing back. But she knows that she owes it to Josie to try. She owes it to herself to try. 

Hope isn’t sure that she is strong enough to wait as long as getting her memories back may take if this Josie — a Josie who only knows a part of her — keeps looking at her like that. 

“Were you this hard to read when I had my memories?” Josie asks her, her eyes glittering with mirth, slathering peanut butter onto her toast. 

Hope laughs, a little bit, despite herself, before she nods. “Probably.”

Josie smiles. “I’ll figure you out eventually,” is all she says and Hope ignores, for what feels like the hundredth time in the last hours, the way she thinks she would like to let her. 

The sun's barely risen by the time Josie leaves. “I’ll be back,” she promises, “and then we’ll figure out our next step.” She kneels down to brush over Persephone’s fur, who purrs happily, before pressing a lingering kiss to Hope’s cheek. “Don’t disappear on me.”

“I won’t,” Hope promises, fairly certain that she might be blushing. 

She should disappear. But she won’t. Josie’s presence is like an anchor. She watches the other girl leave before she shakes her head, trying to clear it of her messy, jumbled thoughts. She has excuses to make and a test to make up for. 


	6. six

Josie comes over early one Saturday morning and she finds Hope in one of the bedrooms on the second floor, a paintbrush between her lips as she slathers paint all over the walls with a roller. If it happens to be the same room that Josie stayed in when she slept over, neither of them acknowledges it. 

“Breaking and entering?” Hope asks around the paintbrush, setting it down on the sheet next to her and dropping the roller in the pan. She had gone with a sage green today, crisscrosses coating the walls in front of her. 

“Persephone let me in,” Josie replies, and Hope can hear the smile in her voice without even turning around. 

“I think she’s adopted you then, the traitor.” 

Josie laughs and it’s melodic and Hope feels it wrap around her heart. “They say cats are great judges of character, you know.”

Hope shakes her head, smiling despite herself, but she turns to look at Josie, trying and failing to keep her smile from growing. She wishes so much that she could get over the feeling of euphoria every time she sees Josie, but it doesn’t seem to be going away at all. Quite the opposite, really. “I’ve never heard anyone say that.”

“Then you need to pay more attention,” Josie grins. “I brought breakfast.” Josie holds a box in her hand and she shakes it at Hope, the scent making its way to her nose in a flash. 

“Pancakes? Blueberry….ricotta pancakes?” 

“How in the world —” 

“A secret I’ll take to my grave,” Hope interjects quickly, rubbing her paint-covered hands on her jeans and walking toward the siphon. 

She’s missed Josie. There’s not even a point in denying it anymore. Her mood’s taken an instant upwards turn the moment the siphoner entered, and eating pancakes with her might very well be the highlight of Hope’s week. The little voice in her mind that reminds her that this is a bad, bad idea, the worst idea, is getting easier to push out of the way with every passing day. 

“You were the talk of the school, you know,” Josie says when they’re walking down the stairs to the kitchen. Hope pulls out two plates and knives and forks for them both, nodding her head before looking back at Josie. 

“The mysterious muggle amongst the magical kids,” she teases, even if it stabs at her heart. Even if the breath she takes burns. Because Salvatore is her home. Was her home. 

Now, she’s nothing but a stranger.

“No, not because of that. Because —” Josie pauses, biting her lip before barreling forward. “Because you’re gorgeous and yes, mysterious, but you’re more than that — you’re —” 

“I’m what? A liability?” She ignores the comment on her looks from Josie, but her cheeks are burning and Persephone comes flying into the room, meowing loudly at the sight of food and the fact that she was clearly not included for breakfast. 

“Come on, Hope,” Josie begins but Hope just perches herself on the stool next to Josie, grabbing the container of pancakes, her mouth salivating at the scent. 

Food. Food is better than feelings, anyway.

“Are you going to tell me what they said?” Hope asks through a mouthful of pancakes, licking her lips from the syrup. 

“Are you going to keep being an asshole?” 

“Yes,” Hope responds without missing a beat. Josie rolls her eyes at her, but sips on her coffee before glancing back at Hope, who wishes it still didn’t make her weak in the knees to be the subject of Josie’s looks. 

“Three people asked me for your number,” Josie says. She sounds, well, she doesn’t sound happy about it. Not that Hope should assume that that has anything to do with her. Maybe Josie was just annoyed at the questions. Or liked one of the three people. 

“Did you give it to them?”

“Of course not,” Josie says. “I wouldn’t just hand out your number without asking you. Do you want me to give it to them?”

“God no,” Hope replies and watches a tiny, pleased smile flutter over Josie’s lips. 

Josie clears her throat and there’s a blush coloring her cheeks. “Anyway, what were you painting?”

“I woke up this morning and wanted something fresh for that room and all of the other rooms,” Hope begins, her heart suddenly racing because art was always so personal for her. It was a way to destress, to escape, to feel as free as she did when the trees were racing by her. And she wasn’t changing what her family had created. She was just making it her own. In her own way. 

And she’s never wanted to share it with anyone until — 

“Can I help?” Josie bites down on her lower lip as soon as the question is out. “I mean, only if you want help, of course. I don’t want to destroy your art, but I can maybe do a sky or something —”

Hope interrupts her. “Jo, I would love your help. Are you sure you’re dressed for it?” Hope takes the opportunity to give Josie a once over, thanking the stars that she could hopefully do it with a straight face. 

Josie looks down at her outfit — a pair of black jeans and a navy blue tank top under a denim jacket and she glances back up at Hope. “What’s wrong with my outfit, Hope?”

“No — nothing. It would just be a shame if you were to get paint all over it.” 

“Cleaning spells exist for a reason.”

Hope looks at her, sighing loudly before she shakes her head at herself. “Alright, follow me.” 

That’s how Hope ends up back in the room she had been in, an array of colors spread out between them. “Any requests?” Hope asks, reaching for the white paint roller to finish up the last corner. 

Josie remains quiet, watching Hope paint for several minutes before she makes a suggestion. “New Orleans.”

Hope spins around, the roller still in her hand. “New Orleans?”

Josie shrugs. “A piece of home,” she suggests. “Or we could do something else.”

“You’ve been reading too many books about me,” Hope observes, grabbing a paintbrush to swipe a line of blue down Josie’s nose. 

Josie retaliates and Hope finds herself with a red streak across her cheek. “It’s not like you tell me things. Books are a good backup option. And you better watch yourself, Mikaelson,” she smirks. 

Hope sighs. She’s going to regret this. It’s one thing to keep Josie at an arm's length, even though she was failing miserably at that. It’s another to willingly let her in. “What do you want to know?”

“Favorite color.” 

“Green,” Hope says. She’s pretty proud of what she doesn’t say. Because the real answer would be brown. A warm kind of earth tone, dark and strong, the kind of color you want to fall into. Almost like chocolate. Almost like Josie’s eyes. 

“Why?” Josie asks and Hope glares at her. 

“You know, normally a favorite color just counts as a subjective opinion,” Hope replies, even as she begins sketching the quarter against the canvas of the wall. It’s a good idea. A little slice of New Orleans in the middle of Mystic Falls. A piece of home.

“So, no reason?” Josie presses. 

“It reminds me of the woods.” She exhales sharply. “Of being a wolf. Of being free.”

Josie smiles, obviously satisfied with this response. “Favorite movie.”

Hope shakes her head. “Nope. Your turn, first.”

Josie gasps in mocked shock. “And here I thought you knew everything about me?”

“Our lives have been a little too busy for these kinds of conversation,” Hope points out. She could hazard a guess, of course, but she enjoys listening to Josie talk.

“Yellow,” Josie says with a smirk. 

“Okay, it’s not really fair when I already know that, Jo.” 

“Then ask me something you don’t know then.”

Josie keeps asking her questions while they paint and Hope is surprised by how much she tells her. She talks about her favorite movies and books, about New Orleans, and about her family. Not about her parents. But about Freya and Keelin and Nik, about Rebekkah and Marcel and Davina and Kol. 

Painting the wall takes up most of the day and Hope makes them paella for lunch while the first layer dries and she’s surprised by how much she enjoys this. 

How much she’s missed Josie. How easy it is for Josie to make her own space here. 

It’s dangerously close to happiness, the way Josie makes her feel. 

It’s already dark out by the time they make it back up to the room and Josie mumbles a spell so that there are floating lights all around them. It’s warm and inviting, but maybe that’s just the way that Josie makes her feel. Has made her feel all day, really. 

It feels comfortable, being here, painting with Josie. They don’t talk much and Hope is thankful for that. Josie doesn’t ask too much of her, never taking more than Hope can give, and as Hope tries to swallow down her feelings about the girl next to her, she doesn’t feel the weight of her family, her memories, pressing down on her the way they usually do. 

On the wall, the French Quarter has come to life, street corners and her family’s home and the warm flickering lights of her favorite city. She can almost hear the jazz playing in the streets and smell the beignets.

“I can’t believe you were able to paint this all from memory,” Josie says in a low voice next to her. Hope breathes in deeply, can’t remember when or how Josie got so close, but as Hope turns to her, she’s bathed in warm light, and Hope can’t help but reach up, barely a shake in her hand as she tucks a stray lock of brown hair behind Josie’s ear. 

Josie leans into the touch and Hope doesn’t need her wolf hearing to know that her heart is beating at a rapid pace, with Josie’s thumping right along with it. 

“I remember too much,” she says softly, and it’s laced with melancholy as she pulls her hand away. 

She’s not sure who moves first or if it’s just the inevitable fall into each other that Hope’s imagined for months now. Because all of a sudden, her lips are against Josie’s and everything she thought that she would feel at the Kissing Booth or in her bed a few days ago pales in comparison to the press of Josie’s lips against hers. They’re soft and warm and she tastes like the pancakes they had hours ago and a faint hint of mocha. 

Heart hammering her ears, Hope breathes Josie in. Running her hand along Josie’s waist, she takes a hand to her back, tugging on Josie to pull her deeper into her. 

Josie parts her lips, just enough for Hope to slip her tongue inside and she can’t help but smile into the kiss when she hears the soft noise that comes from the back of Josie’s throat. She’s holding back, she has to because this is far too much and not enough and if she isn’t careful, she could get lost in Josie Saltzman, even though she knows she’s been drowning in the weight of her feelings for months now. 

She maneuvers them, pressing Josie against a dry spot on the wall, their chest brushing as they break for air and curse their fucking lungs for the need to breathe because Hope can’t wait to —

“Hope,” Josie exhales against her lips, opening her eyes, and Hope’s starstruck gazing at her, brown orbs swirling with golds and oranges. And yeah, Josie’s eyes are definitely her favorite color. 

“Hi,” Hope smiles, licking her lower lip. Josie’s eyes trace the movement, her breath shaking as her arms move from where they were at Hope’s hip up and around her neck, fingers tracing along Hope’s jaw. It’s Josie who leans in this time and the kiss is soft and slow and languid and it feels like they have all the time in the world. 

Until Josie pulls away sharply. 

“I have — I’m sorry, Hope,” she says, touching her hand to her lips as she flies from the room. Persephone, ever the voyeur, meows at Josie loudly as she races past her. Hope waits until she hears the slamming of the front door before she moves, running a hand through her hair and nearly kicking over the nearest can of paint. 

She can still taste Josie on her lips. Josie and blueberries. 

She doesn’t see her for three days. 

Three annoying, horrible, nerve-wracking days that have Hope checking her phone constantly and even once plotting a trip by the Salvatore School. 

Josie doesn’t call. Or come over. Or anything. 

Which is _fine_. She’s under no obligation to do that. She’s probably off somewhere with Landon, in their actual, real relationship, and no longer a party to this illusion that Hope always knew was going to shatter and break into a thousand pieces. 

“You’re in a mood, Marshall,” Maya says on day two and Hope breathes out slowly. Her eyes don’t flash yellow and she barely crushes her pen. She counts that as an accomplishment, thank you very much. 

On day three of what she’s pretty sure is moping that’s turning into a depressive, angry spiral, she decides to venture into town for some actual food. Starving seems like a shit way to go when she knows she can get some pretty great takeout. 

She finds Lizzie Saltzman chained up against a tree, which is certainly a surprising turn of events. Josie’s standing in front of her, a sword in her hand, and they’re obviously arguing. 

“This isn’t my preferred way of dying either, but at least I got to stab your stupid ex-boyfriend,” Lizzie says, before her eyes suddenly glow black, a snarl escaping her lips. 

“Ex-boyfriend?” Hope asks, stepping into the clearing. 

Lizzie’s eyes turn back to blue seconds later and she looks far too happy to be having this conversation in the middle of the town square. “Hi, Hope. Haven’t you heard? It’s basically old news at this point. It’s been a week or something. Josie finally ditched the idiot pelican.”

A week. 

A week is more than three days. A week means Josie wasn’t cheating when she kissed Hope, when Hope kissed her. So, why did she run? Hope glances at Josie quickly, a question on her lips because it’s been three days of radio silence and it’s been killing Hope. 

But before she can say anything, Josie clears her throat loudly, a mirthless chuckle breaking through the night. “Can we maybe discuss my love life after we’ve saved Lizzie? Please?” She looks distinctly uncomfortable and Hope feels like she has a thousand questions and doesn’t even want to know the answer to any of them. And Josie's carrying a sword. A very sharp sword. 

Instead, she nods, firmly avoiding Josie’s eyes as she raises her hands. “Yeah, sure. Uh, tell me about the monster?”

It’s an Oni — some kind of demon-ghost-monster thing that possesses people and can only be destroyed with the sword still in Josie’s hand. Lizzie lashes out and thank goodness the chains are tight because the last thing Hope wants to do is hurt Josie’s sister, who’s switching back and forth between banter and villain monologuing as she tries to keep the Oni out of her mind. 

But of course, Josie saves Lizzie and Hope shouldn’t be surprised. Josie’s spectacular and powerful and amazing and stronger than anyone has ever given her credit for being. Black clouds of smoke drift through the air, away from Lizzie and Hope can only watch as both of the twins fall to the ground. 

She brings them back to the school when it becomes obvious they won’t wake up any time soon. Her mastery of levitation spells and her knowledge of the grounds certainly come in useful. She lingers in the doorway to the twin’s bedroom, just for a second, her hand clutching the mahogany molding. She thinks to leave a note, maybe, but she isn’t even sure what she would want to say to Josie. That she misses her? That she can't stop thinking about the kiss — because it was a hell of a kiss and it's led to more than one sleepless night and thoughts of things that she definitely wasn't going to mention in front of Lizzie. 

But — Josie left. She disappeared. So, turnabout is fair play in love and demons, right? 

Hope turns and flees into the night. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> comments, kudos and all of you are very much appreciated!
> 
> if you want to ignore canon and scream with us about sapphic ships, come say hi @blckmaqic or @liz_mikaelson


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